HorsesDaily News: A Day in Our Lives

A Day in Our Lives

Article and Photos by Diana DeRosa

Cealy Tetley and Diana De Rosa on the scene for Horsesdaily August 24, 2004 – Athens Greece -- I thought you might find it interesting to get a birdseye view of one of our days here in Athens Greece. One of our very long days.

I live in a place called Agios Andreas along with a number of other equine journalists. We were convinced that this was the place to stay as it would be closer for us to get to the Markopoulos Equestrian Centre which is outside of town. It takes us an hour to get to the equestrian center and is not necessarily any shorter than staying near the MPC or Main Press Center. I go to the MPC almost everyday to borrow lenses from Nikon, which is housed in the Kodak Center along with Canon.

So, every morning we get up about three hours before the time our first event starts. We live in these small two bedroom shared bathroom dwellings. Our rooms are quite small but since we don’t spend a lot of time there it’s okay. We have a TV and a refrigerator and a desk and closet space.

Heading Out for The Day

My Humble Abode Once we are ready we head on out with bags in tow. I have a fairly large wheeling camera bag which also carries my computer and other supplies and then I bring an extra smaller bag (the reason to be disclosed shortly). We then go to the nearest shuttle bus stop to catch a Fun Bus or tram (they look similar to the ones that transport you at one of the bigger parks, such as Disney World). Then you are either lucky and one comes right away or you have to wait up to 20 minutes for the bus.

Along with the room we get a complimentary breakfast which never changes. Eggs, freshly made bacon, yogurt, water, corn flakes, cold cuts, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, orange juice, and rolls. Not every journalist opts for breakfast but I do and when I miss breakfast I’m not a happy camper. One good thing is that they don’t mind us taking food from breakfast with us to eat during the day so I eat an egg and bacon sandwich, have a bowl of cereal and take a sampling of the rest of the food with me to eat throughout the day, including a few homemade sandwiches and yogurt (I wonder if you can have too much yogurt – it’s really the only thing I like and I eat about 4 containers a day). It saves me money and makes it easier to snack by doing this.

There are two breakfast locations in the compound (it actually is a military compound where the military families can come to visit). One is close to my dorm and the other is close to the bus stop. I’ve gotten into the habit of taking the tram to the bus stop so that I can walk to the bus afterwards. So, once we’ve loaded up our belly and our bags we take our weary body down the path to the bus stop. In Greece there are a lot of things that just simply don’t make sense but here rules are rules and they don’t stray from them. For instance, when you walk from breakfast there is a much shorter route if they’d only have an opening in the fence. But no, we have to carry our bags up and down steps to go out the entrance. I’m sure it’s for security reasons but there are enough security personnel around to man a gate opening at that time in the morning when saving a little time would be a bonus. A few extra winks of sleep never hurts.

The Bus Stop The bus stop is actually quite nice, because of the water in the background, and the mountains. All over Athens, it seems no matter which direction you look there are always these lovely mountains in the background. Our buses leave 6:00 to 9:00 every morning on the half hour. If our timing doesn’t work with those times they don’t change the schedule, they make us go a circuitous route to the MPC where we can then catch a bus to the Equestrian Centre. On the bus some of us take a break and others try and get some work done. My fellow journalist Nancy Jaffer and I can often be seen clicking away on our laptops in hopes of making our days just a little bit shorter. Sometimes fellow photographer Charlie Mann is also working away on his photo files. No sense to waste an hour. I figure get some work done or get some sleep, since sleep is scarce here.